


in unermüdlich gleichen gleisen

by ascience



Category: Football RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: Angst, Footy Ficathon, German National Team, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-31
Updated: 2014-12-31
Packaged: 2018-03-04 14:40:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3071864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ascience/pseuds/ascience
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(If they are gods, gods are weak.)</p><p>New Year's fic, sort of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in unermüdlich gleichen gleisen

“We’re gods tonight,” is what they say after they win against Argentina and the words travel through the team, are groped at, turned around with their tongues and flushed down their throats with beer and the tap water of good intentions.

The phrase tastes sweet and unattainable to Benni and he repeats it so often that the words lose sense and bleed into one another.

When Mats pants the sentence against Benni’s flushed skin that night (and Benni forgets to be ashamed about the fact that _this_ is the second thing he thought about when the final whistle cut through the air), it sounds watery and hollow already.

Gods receive sacrifices, they don’t offer them and yet.

And yet Benni is on his knees and has no words but prayers. He bleeds when Mats bites his lip and his blood isn’t golden, it dries crusted and black.

Divinity, perhaps, is their hands intertwined between the sheets, their sleepless sweat running down their chests, the moans seeping through their lies, leaving the truth obscenely exposed.

If they were gods, time would wait for them. But as Benni feels every single minute he fought on the pitch settle painfully and deeply in his muscles, the world doesn’t move slower to allow Mats to kiss Benni’s temple one last time.

And Benni cries, fleshly, worldly, and with a smile on his face.

\--

They’re not gods anymore five months later, none of them are. Mankind is fickle and even statues built from marble break.

Benni wakes up with a headache on New Year’s Eve and tries to press his palms against his forehead like he tries to dig his heels into the last few hours that are left of the year that everyone in Germany was a winner.

Humans offer sacrifices, they don’t receive them and yet.

And yet Lisa closes the curtains for Benni when he asks her to and she brings a glass of water when he asks her to and she leaves him alone when he asks her to and she lets him pretend she doesn’t know his worries when he asks her to.

Lisa leaves the phone on the bedside table and Benni balls his hands to fists.

(If they are gods, gods are weak.)

Benni can hear his own blood pumping, forcing its way through his tense neck and into his ears, almost blocking out the beeps coming from the phone.

It clicks, connection made, and Benni doesn’t say a word. It’s not himself he wants to hear talk. His words don't make the gospel.

“Happy new one,” Mats says, his voice unexpectedly not overlain with background noise of other people talking or music or fireworks and Benni can pretend he is alone.

(Happy New What?)

Humanity, perhaps, is the barrier between them, the tacit pain, other people on other parties, the pretense of distance, counting down as if a new dawn changes the salty taste of their skin.

Mats’ breath resonates too loud in Benni’s mind, too loud against the walls and still it aches as it slows down when Mats falls asleep, like the heart beat of a dying year.

2015 creeps up on them silently and the clock resets itself to January without reproach, sympathy or sermon.

Benni has no good resolutions left to break.

**Author's Note:**

> For [this](http://thesilverwitch.livejournal.com/33981.html?thread=831165#t831165) prompt and for myself.  
> The title is from [this poem](http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/conrad-ferdinand-meyer-gedichte-1882/42) and it means 'on untiring, unchanging tracks'.
> 
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/anexactscience), ahoy.
> 
> Can I still write a happy New Year's fic when New Year's Eve is over?


End file.
